Academics, students and university campuses have recently become major targets for repression by authoritarian governments in Egypt and Turkey. In Egypt hundreds of students and academics have been arrested as part of an escalating crackdown on dissent since the military coup of 2013. In January 2016, Cambridge PhD student Giulio Regeni went missing. His body was later found bearing marks of torture. The Egyptian government eventually admitted that state security officials had put Giulio under surveillance but deny any role in his torture and murder. Meanwhile, hundreds of Turkish and Kurdish academics have been forced from their jobs and dozens arrested during the past two years, in an orchestrated campaign by the government against signatories to an open letter calling for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish conflict in Turkey.

This public meeting brings together academics from Egypt and Turkey with campaigners to discuss what we can do here in the UK to mobilise solidarity for our colleagues who are under threat.